‘My son Dev is being honoured with new road safety rules’

Meera Naran has spent years campaigning for change after Dev, a passenger in his grandfather's car, was killed in a crash on the M6 motorway back in 2018

04:00, 11 Jan 2026

Meera Naran has campaigned for years to make the roads safer(Image: DMU)

Leicester mum Meera Naran was shattered after her son died in a crash on a smart motorway when he just eight years old.

Since then, she has campaigned for harder rules surrounding road safety for many years.

Meera lost her son Dev, in 2018, in a collision which happened on a hard shoulder being used as a live motorway lane on the M6 in Birmingham after Dev's grandfather's car, which had stopped in the hard shoulder, was struck by a lorry travelling at 56mph.

Since then, Meera, a De Montfort University[1] lecturer, has dedicated her life to campaigning for road safety[2], serving as an independent road safety advisor and sitting on several national working groups involving the police, ambulance and fire services.

Thanks to her hard work, the government has introduced a new road safety strategy, the first in more than a decade, which it said "will save thousands of lives on the nation's roads" by tackling drink driving, improving training for young drivers and introducing mandatory eye tests for older motorists.

Meera Naran with her son Dev(Image: DMU)

Launched on Tuesday, January 6, the strategy sets out an ambitious plan to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Britain's roads by 65 percent by 2035, with an even more stretching target of 70 percent for children under 16.

Included in the proposed changes, the government will consult on lowering the drink drive limit in England and Wales, which has remained unchanged since 1967 and is currently the highest in Europe.

The strategy also suggested that in the future some drink drive offenders might be required to have an alcohol interlock device fitted to their vehicle as a condition of being allowed to drive again.

Inexperience behind the wheel is also costing lives and, to address this, the government will consult on introducing a thee or six-month minimum learning period, giving learner drivers more time to develop their skills in varied conditions, such as night driving, adverse weather and heavy traffic.

Speaking about the new strategy plan, Meera Naran MBE, said: "I welcome this much-anticipated road safety strategy and am pleased to see a number of measures set out to reduce road deaths and serious injuries.

"I am especially grateful to the Secretary of State for giving me her word that she would honour Dev and recognise the importance of legislative change to adopt the General Safety Regulations, as Dev's Law and for delivering on that commitment.

"I look forward to working closely with the department to ensure that the appropriate steps are taken to establish a robust and effective framework."

References

1. ^ De Montfort University (www.leicestermercury.co.uk)
2. ^ road safety (www.leicestermercury.co.uk)